Japan's Mitsui & Co shares slide on Gulf oil spill

Shares in Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co Ltd plunged 8 per cent to a six-month low on Wednesday as investors worried about the impact of the prolonged oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico on its earnings. A Mitsui subsidiary owns 10 per cent of the blown-out seabed well and the slide in its shares comes after the latest failed attempt to halt the spill and the US government announcing a criminal probe into the disaster. Mitsui's stock has lost more than one-fifth of its market value, or around $7bn, since the spill occurred on April 20. CLSA analyst Penn Bowers said Mitsui may face $2bn in clean-up and legal costs, though much would depend on who was found to be at fault. "I think you have at least in Mitsui a case of people panicking and getting out, and being unwilling to take a risk that right now is very difficult to analyse," he said.BP Plc's failure to stop the the six-week-old spill with its "top kill" strategy sparked fears oil could leak until August and punished related stocks, including Anadarko, Transocean, Cameron and Halliburton.